Consequences (for the 1st of 7 Words on Good Friday)

Consequences
By Valerie Bridgeman
© April 2017
3rd draft

Women lined the road
They cry for a dead man walking, he carries the load
Condemned for crimes against the state
While protesting for humanity’s sake

But he said,
I CAME to set it on fire
And NOW, the burden of a conviction he did not deserve
the CONSEQUENCES of a decision to serve his people

His back caked with blood
His face bruised
from the brutal force that Empire soldiers used to subdue him;
stop resisting, they said.
Stop resisting!
Stop resisting!

He bore the cross
Simon shared the WEIGHT
Of the splinters of time and eternity

The Consequences of a life lived in defiance to a regime
Bent on destroying the people’s Spirit
Then and now

He told the truth
He lived the truth
He IS the truth
Then and now

But even truth has its consequences

Women lined the road
As he climbed Golgotha
He said
Don’t weep for me
Cry for yourselves
They questioned me at length
And treated me with contempt
I’ve been mocked and accused
But you’ve been used to provide the chorus of lies
And cries in the key of Consequences
Today it’s me but tomorrow, it will be you

Don’t weep for me
Cry for yourselves
And for the fruit of your womb
For your sons and daughters
Led to the slaughter by a government so cruel--
They rule by crucifixion
And modern day lynchings

… A government that does not BOTHER to clean up its mess or dress it up—

Golgotha’s hill
Littered with skulls and bones
Bodies left in the streets to die
While people shake their heads, and cry at the sight of it
What?—4 ½ hours—3 ½ hours…
Then and now

Golgotha—the consequences of power gone MAD
Power that grinds up the vulnerable…
There is no honorable way to imagine this horror

Forgive. Forgive? Forgive them?
Forgive them their madness?
Forgive them their ignorance?
Their evil?
Their Shamelessness?

I came to set it on Fire
But they burn the green trees
And leave a hull of a man
A shell of a woman
People bruised and battered
Forgive, but let them know
We will resist
There is BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS
These are the consequences